NRE, NRO and FCNR interest taxability
Check whether interest on an Indian non-resident account is exempt or taxable.
Open itMoney leaving an Indian ordinary rupee account passes two gates: an annual ceiling under the exchange-control rules, and a tax certification the bank will not move without. This shows your headroom and lists the paperwork for the leg you are planning.
Current income sits outside the annual ceiling. Everything else counts against it.
In United States dollars, which is how the ceiling is expressed.
The total already sent under the ceiling since 1 April.
One million dollars per financial year under the current rules. Editable if it moves.
Used to work out the tax forms, which are driven by rupee amounts.
The aggregate that the tax-form threshold is tested against.
Five lakh rupees under the current rule.
Untick where it is a return of your own capital and no Indian income arises.
A lower or nil deduction certificate, or an order fixing the chargeable sum.
Headroom after this remittance
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Part of Form 15CA —
What the bank will ask for
The exchange-control ceiling and the tax certification are separate. The ceiling caps how much can leave an ordinary rupee account in a financial year for capital items — sale proceeds, inheritances, the balance of your own funds. Current income is outside it: rent, interest, dividends and pension can be sent without a ceiling once the tax on them is settled.
The tax certification runs on rupee amounts and asks whether the sum is chargeable in India. It applies to every remittance, including one comfortably inside the ceiling, and it is the gate the bank actually enforces at the counter.
Because the ceiling is annual and the certification threshold is an aggregate, both are year-level constraints and both are easy to trip late in the year. A family selling one property and one set of shares in the same twelve months can find the second sale over the ceiling with no warning, because nothing flags it until the bank declines.
The workable approach is to plan the whole year's remittances before the first one: which legs are current income and therefore free of the ceiling, which are capital and count against it, and where the financial year boundary falls relative to the sale dates.
Worked example
A family has already sent 400,000 dollars from sale proceeds this financial year and now wants to send 250,000 more, worth about 2.1 crore rupees.
Switch the source to current income and the ceiling stops biting entirely — the certification does not. That is the distinction the two gates draw.
An estimate, not advice. This is an estimate built from what you typed, not advice on your file. Nothing here reads your documents, checks your treaty article or looks at the year you are actually in. Where the number matters, we agree a fixed fee in writing before any work starts.
Any figure prefilled in the panel above is stated with the year it belongs to and can be changed. Rates and thresholds move; a calculator that asks you for the current one stays right, and one that hides a guess does not.
An NRI selling two Indian properties in the same year needed the repatriation of both sale proceeds planned against the applicable limits and reporting requirements. We reviewed both transactions together, sequenced the repatriation to satisfy the documentation each required, and both transfers completed without a compliance query.
A family repatriating funds from Indian rental income, deposit interest and a property sale in the same year had not tracked how much of the annual repatriation allowance each transfer used. We consolidated the family's planned repatriations, confirmed they stayed within the applicable limits, and sequenced the transfers accordingly.
A client's repatriation plan assumed a lower-TDS certificate would be obtained quickly, but a processing delay meant the original sequencing no longer worked within the client's planning year. We revised the repatriation schedule around the actual certificate timeline, and the client's funds moved as soon as the certificate was obtained.
A remittance out of India needs its tax position certified before the bank will process it. The file establishes the character of the funds, produces the certification, and keeps the position consistent with the returns already filed.
Read how this one runsA cross-border return prepared on one side only is usually right in isolation and wrong in combination. The review checks residence, source and relief in that order, and says plainly whether an amendment is worth making.
Read how this one runsAn application for a reduced or nil deduction is made in advance and decided on the computed liability, not on the gross amount. Applying after the payment leaves a refund claim in place of a certificate.
Read how this one runsThe withholding rate depends on the treaty, on the size of the holding, and on whether the parent is the beneficial owner rather than a conduit. Establishing all three before the payment is what secures the lower rate at source.
Read how this one runsAn Indian entity with international related-party transactions needs an accountant's report filed by a date of its own, ahead of the return. The work is reconciling the transactions to the books first, because the report is only as defensible as that reconciliation.
Read how this one runsAll case studies — every published engagement in one place.
Strategy and compliance for income, assets and families spread across borders.
Software revenue crosses borders by default — sourcing rules, withholding on licence-like payments and IP location decide the effective rate.
Software revenue is rarely taxed where the team sits. Licence, subscription and service income are characterised differently by each side, and the answer decides withholding at source, treaty relief and whether a foreign customer creates a taxable presence at all — questions that are cheap to settle before the contract and expensive afterwards.
Check whether interest on an Indian non-resident account is exempt or taxable.
Open itCompare withholding on the gross sale price against tax on the actual gain.
Open itTest your Indian residential status and see when the RNOR window closes.
Open itBuild an intercompany interest rate from its components and test the actual rate.
Open itSplit a cost pool by headcount, revenue and assets and compare the keys.
Open itHow this desk handles the work behind the numbers, at a fixed fee agreed before it starts.
Read the pageHow this desk handles the work behind the numbers, at a fixed fee agreed before it starts.
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Where our partners studied — CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program), AICPA, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Malaysian Institute of Accountants.